there was a bill introduced by the ways and means committee in the house, sandy levin that called for this legislation. the speaker was going to bring it up to kill it but he kobt kill it and then we moved to plan b, the debacle of all debacles. it's the mother of all debacles. that was brought up in an effort to send us something. he couldn't even pass it among the republicans it was so absurd. he meaning the speaker. so it's very clear now, mr. president, that the speaker's number one goal is to get elected speaker on january 3rd. the house is not even here. he's told me he'll give them two days to get back here, 48 hours, not two days, 48 hours. they don't even have enough of the leadership here to meet to talk about it. they've done it with conference calls. people are spread all over this country because the speaker is basically waiting for january 3rd. now, the president campaigned on raising taxes on people making more than $250 thou,000 a year. the bush tax cut will expire at the end of this year. obama was elected with a surplus of about three million votes. he won the electi